For the past month or so I have been slowly learning how to play music that is beyond my ability as a flautist, the Mozart duets, originally written for flute and violin. When I first printed them out and looked at them, I decided to set them aside, because I'd never be able to play them up to speed and with the proper grace. But after a few weeks of working on pieces by lesser composers, I decided to accept the challenge.
I reasoned that it was a more valuable experience to play a significant piece of music that I will probably never be able to master to my own satisfaction, let alone for an audience, than to play a minor piece well - though it's almost always fun to read through a duet with a friend.
Learning to play a piece is a path toward appreciating it, and the more I work on the Mozart, the more I am blown away by his genius. His music is deceptively simple and mysteriously delightful.
I love the way he repeats phrases with slight differences, the way he leads up to the unexpected reappearance of a theme, the way he introduces new material without ever making it sound forced. You can be playing straightforward scales or arpeggios and yet be playing the most beautiful phrases.
Teachers and students of music usually talk about practicing, but my one-time musical guru, the late Arnie Lawrence, claimed that he never practiced: he only played. By that he meant that even when he was playing by himself, the music counted, it wasn't just "practice" for another time, when it would count. But none of my teachers, as I remember it, spoke about working on music.
I find it hard to "practice" for a long time, and sometimes I run out of things that I want to "play," and I forget to play as if I really mean it. But tackling a demanding piece like the Mozart duet takes me a long time, and I find it easier to imagine what it would be like to be a serious musician and practice four hours a day or more (which I have no intention of doing).
When I was in high school and taking clarinet lessons, I played a lot of exercises by Klose - more or less everyone does - but I think it would have gotten me farther if I'd learned how to take a difficult passage in a real piece of music and turn it into an exercise, while still playing as musically as possible. As a mature man, I finally figured out how to do that, and it's what I'm trying to do with the sixteenth-note passages in the Mozart duets.
I reasoned that it was a more valuable experience to play a significant piece of music that I will probably never be able to master to my own satisfaction, let alone for an audience, than to play a minor piece well - though it's almost always fun to read through a duet with a friend.
Learning to play a piece is a path toward appreciating it, and the more I work on the Mozart, the more I am blown away by his genius. His music is deceptively simple and mysteriously delightful.
I love the way he repeats phrases with slight differences, the way he leads up to the unexpected reappearance of a theme, the way he introduces new material without ever making it sound forced. You can be playing straightforward scales or arpeggios and yet be playing the most beautiful phrases.
Teachers and students of music usually talk about practicing, but my one-time musical guru, the late Arnie Lawrence, claimed that he never practiced: he only played. By that he meant that even when he was playing by himself, the music counted, it wasn't just "practice" for another time, when it would count. But none of my teachers, as I remember it, spoke about working on music.
I find it hard to "practice" for a long time, and sometimes I run out of things that I want to "play," and I forget to play as if I really mean it. But tackling a demanding piece like the Mozart duet takes me a long time, and I find it easier to imagine what it would be like to be a serious musician and practice four hours a day or more (which I have no intention of doing).
When I was in high school and taking clarinet lessons, I played a lot of exercises by Klose - more or less everyone does - but I think it would have gotten me farther if I'd learned how to take a difficult passage in a real piece of music and turn it into an exercise, while still playing as musically as possible. As a mature man, I finally figured out how to do that, and it's what I'm trying to do with the sixteenth-note passages in the Mozart duets.
No comments:
Post a Comment